Gardasil Researcher Drops A Bombshell

Dr. Diane Harper, lead researcher in the development of two human papilloma virus vaccines, Gardasil and Cervarix, said the controversial drugs will do little to reduce cervical cancer rates and, even though they’re being recommended for girls as young as nine, there have been no efficacy trials in children under the age of 15.

Dr. Harper, director of the Gynecologic Cancer Prevention Research Group at the University of Missouri, made these remarks during an address at the 4th International Public Conference on Vaccination which took place in Reston, Virginia on Oct. 2-4. Although her talk was intended to promote the vaccine, participants said they came away convinced the vaccine should not be received.

“I came away from the talk with the perception that the risk of adverse side effects is so much greater than the risk of cervical cancer, I couldn’t help but question why we need the vaccine at all,” said Joan Robinson, Assistant Editor at the Population Research Institute.

Dr. Harper began her remarks by explaining that 70 percent of all HPV infections resolve themselves without treatment within a year. Within two years, the number climbs to 90 percent. Of the remaining 10 percent of HPV infections, only half will develop into cervical cancer, which leaves little need for the vaccine.

She went on to surprise the audience by stating that the incidence of cervical cancer in the U.S. is already so low that “even if we get the vaccine and continue PAP screening, we will not lower the rate of cervical cancer in the US.”

There will be no decrease in cervical cancer until at least 70 percent of the population is vaccinated, and even then, the decrease will be minimal.

Apparently, conventional treatment and preventative measures are already cutting the cervical cancer rate by four percent a year. At this rate, in 60 years, there will be a 91.4 percent decline just with current treatment. Even if 70 percent of women get the shot and required boosters over the same time period, which is highly unlikely, Harper says Gardasil still could not claim to do as much as traditional care is already doing.

Dr. Harper, who also serves as a consultant to the World Health Organization, further undercut the case for mass vaccination by saying that “four out of five women with cervical cancer are in developing countries.”

Ms. Robinson said she could not help but wonder, “If this is the case, then why vaccinate at all? But from the murmurs of the doctors in the audience, it was apparent that the same thought was occurring to them.”

However, at this point, Dr. Harper dropped an even bigger bombshell on the audience when she announced that, “There have been no efficacy trials in girls under 15 years.”

Merck, the manufacturer of Gardasil, studied only a small group of girls under 16 who had been vaccinated, but did not follow them long enough to conclude sufficient presence of effective HPV antibodies.

This is not the first time Dr. Harper revealed the fact that Merck never tested Gardasil for safety in young girls. During a 2007 interview with KPC News.com, she said giving the vaccine to girls as young as 11 years-old “is a great big public health experiment.”

At the time, which was at the height of Merck’s controversial drive to have the vaccine mandated in schools, Dr. Harper remained steadfastly opposed to the idea and said she had been trying for months to convince major television and print media about her concerns, “but no one will print it.”

“It is silly to mandate vaccination of 11 to 12 year old girls,” she said at the time. “There also is not enough evidence gathered on side effects to know that safety is not an issue.”

When asked why she was speaking out, she said: “I want to be able to sleep with myself when I go to bed at night.”

Since the drug’s introduction in 2006, the public has been learning many of these facts the hard way. To date, 15,037 girls have officially reported adverse side effects from Gardasil to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). These adverse reactions include Guilliane Barre, lupus, seizures, paralysis, blood clots, brain inflammation and many others. The CDC acknowledges that there have been 44 reported deaths.

Dr. Harper also participated in the research on Glaxo-Smith-Kline’s version of the drug, Cervarix, currently in use in the UK but not yet approved here. Since the government began administering the vaccine to school-aged girls last year, more than 2,000 patients reported some kind of adverse reaction including nausea, dizziness, blurred vision, convulsions, seizures and hyperventilation. Several reported multiple reactions, with 4,602 suspected side-effects recorded in total. The most tragic case involved a 14 year-old girl who dropped dead in the corridor of her school an hour after receiving the vaccination.

The outspoken researcher also weighed in last month on a report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association that raised questions about the safety of the vaccine, saying bluntly: "The rate of serious adverse events is greater than the incidence rate of cervical cancer."

Ms. Robinson said she respects Dr. Harper’s candor. “I think she’s a scientist, a researcher, and she’s genuine enough a scientist to be open about the risks. I respect that in her.”

However, she failed to make the case for Gardasil. “For me, it was hard to resist the conclusion that Gardasil does almost nothing for the health of American women.”

apparently, this dr is being misquoted. the origin for this anti vaccine article is a web site that is opposed to vaccinations of any kind, but, instead, promotes natural cures on it’s site

to see this story, combine the following into 1 url address
http://74.125.113.132/search?q=cache:JxxfcQofzCwJ:www.kpcnews.com/
index.php%3Foption%3Dcom_content%26view%3Darticle%26id%3D7528:
So-what-DID-the-HPV-researcher-say%3F%26catid%3D191:cindy-bevington+dr+
diane+harper+international+public+conference+vaccination&cd=10&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

or search for
diane harper kpcnews so what did the hpv researcher say
in google, and look in the cached page for the following

So what DID the HPV researcher say?
Cindy Bevington
Friday, 16 October 2009 13:34

First, I want to apologize for not keeping up with this blog. I had some health issues that needed attending — but now I’m back at informing readers about the events and speakers at the National Vaccine Information Center’s International Public Conference on Vaccine Issues.

This blog will talk about the presentation given by Dr. Diane Harper, one of the lead researchers who helped Merck and GlaxoSmithKline develop a vaccine for human papilloma virus, or HPV. The vaccines protect against up to four HPVs, depending on which vaccine you use. Merck’s is the four-valent, protecting against two HPVs that can lead to cervical cancer. The other two cause genital warts, a rare disease in the U.S. that is non-lifethreatening.

Since the conference ended Oct. 5, stories have proliferated on the Internet about Dr. Harper’s presentation. Some say she denounced the vaccines. Some say she claimed they didn’t work. Some go so far as to say she said the vaccines were more dangerous than the disease. I don’t know whether the authors of these reports attended this conference or not, but I was there. I was the moderator for Dr. Harper’s presentation, which she gave with dozens of slides on a PowerPoint. I have a copy of those slides. And I can say unequivocably that Dr. Harper is being misquoted and quoted out of context.

What she DID say

Before she even began her nearly one-hour presentation, the first thing she said was to compliment the conference organizers for centering the theme of the event around this slogan: “Show us the science and give us the choice.” As she proceeded into one of the most thorough and informative presenations I’ve ever heard in any conference I’ve ever attended, it became obvious that she believes in that slogan herself. Basically, she showed us the science. Then she told us, for those women living in DEVELOPED countries, this vaccine should be a choice, not a mandate.

Dr. Harper started out by explaining what cervical cancer is, who gets it and how. Of those women who do get it, 4 out of 5 are in developing, or third-world countries. Of those who get it in developed countries such as the U.S., 50 percent have NEVER had a Pap test — the clinical reason why so few women in the U.S. die from cervical cancer. Another 10 percent had not had a Pap for five years or more. Thirty percent had a false negative report on their Pap test, and 10 percent had inappropriate medical advice.

As far as the vaccine goes, we learned that it works VERY WELL in women with no current HPV infection. What that means is, if you’re positive for the HPV against which the vaccine protects, neither vaccine works. We also learned that children, both boys and girls can be positive for HPV whether they’ve had sex or not. However, since it may be unlikely that a person is positive for all four HPVs at the same time, getting the vaccine could help protect against the ones you’re not positive for. It also has some “cross-protection,” meaning the vaccine has been shown to be effective against a couple other HPVs that were not tested in the study.

As far as testing in young girls under age 15, the vaccines were tested only for safety — not whether they work or not in the girls, Harper said. Additionally, she acknowledged that some girls have suffered adverse reactions to the vaccine, including deaths. What is interesting is that published data, according to Harper, show that the vaccine being used in the United Kingdom — Cervarix — actually has shown to be longer-lasting than the one used here in the states, Gardasil. In fact, 35 percent of Gardasil-vaccinated women ages 15 to 26 lose their antibodies to one of the vaccine’s four HPVs within three years.

The startling information came next: “If HPV vaccines are not effective for AT LEAST 15 YEARS, THEN NO CERVICAL CANCER IS PREVENTED. It is merely postponed.”

The problem is obvious, then: If it’s already wearing off at 3 years, how safe are those 11- and 12-year-olds we’re vaccinating right now against cervical cancer when they’re older???

Dr. Harper addressed the injury reports turned in to the CDC’s VAERS (vaccine adverse event reports), noting that 32 deaths, with 20 confirmed, had been reported in the U.S. after Gardasil. Also, 13 reports of Guillian Barre Syndrome have shown up, as have four reports of juvenile, ALS-like (Lou Gerig’s disease) symptoms.

The bottom line is, the duration of these vaccines — how long they work — is the biggest unknown. Also, in order to protect women from cervical cancer targeted by these vaccines, the U.S. would have to fully vaccinate a minimum of 70 percent of the female population in the U.S. for SIXTY years, straight, without fail, in order to see a significant drop in cervical cancer. If that rate goes down, Dr. Harper warned, the rise in cancer witll go up.

“Vaccinating in the U.S., then, will not reduce cervical cancer,” Harper said. “But it will prevent a number of colposcopic exams and precancerous lesions.”

She stressed that there are more than 100 different HPVs, and that the vaccines protect against the ones that cause only about 70 percent of cervical cancers, which means, women will still have to get Pap smears regularly to help prevent the other 30 percent, if they are protected at all against the 70 percent by the vaccine.

What then, is the value of this vaccine? If you live in Africa, where cervical cancer is one of the leading causes of death in women, the risks far outweigh the benefits because the vaccines do work. But if you live here in the U.S., then it is important to consider the adverse reports, your personal needs and the fact that you’ll probably need boosters before you decide to get the shot for your child or teenager.

The conclusion is, no matter how many we vaccinate, we cannot eradicate HPV. And, here in the U.S., Harper said, to vaccinate or not should be an added option to consider for a girl’s health plan — a CHOICE, not a mandate. On the other hand, it could save hundreds of thousands of lives in third-world countries.

This is only a synopsis of her talk. But it pretty much puts the shots in perspective as we look around the U.S. and think about whether this should even be a consideration of a mandate in this country. Also — Dr. Harper did advocate for more complete reporting of adverse events after these shots, with a better VAERS system in place.

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